9 Lifelong Learners: A Dangerous Assumption

"Teachers are lifelong learners, that's why they teach students to learn."

Have you heard this before? Have you thought this before? Have you said this before?

I have...and now I realise that it's a dangerous assumption to make; in fact, one that may be getting many of us in trouble without realising it.  You see, all this time I've been thinking that the majority of the teachers in the world WANT to improve education and WANT to be up to date and relevant in their professional practice but don't have access to the resources that they need to implement the change.  I've been angry at districts and school boards for not giving teachers the resources needed to make change happen.  Unfortunately, I never stopped to ask myself if the teachers really WANTED to learn anything new or LIKED learning new things to make the change happen.  I had assumed, as I mentioned above, that they were inherently lifelong learners who were just in a situation that didn't allow them access to resources.

The realisation that this is a dangerous assumption hit me after a number of recent surveys with teachers alluded to the fact that they didn't have extra personal time, didn't want to give their personal time or thought it was inappropriate to give their personal time to learn anything new for work outside their contract hours.  In addition, I had a few teacher comments indirectly imply that "at their age they couldn't learn anything new, or at least it would be a lot more difficult and probably not worth the time."  I was disappointed when it finally occurred to me that what these survey results were really saying was that these teachers weren't interested in being professional learners.  For these teachers, no amount of curated internet resources, professional articles, personal learning networks or free webinars are going to make a difference since their inherent desire to learn as a professional is diminished.

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If you've read my previous posts, you'll see that one of my personal areas of inquiry is change in education.  I've been following and listening to many of the top thinkers in this area (Will Richardson, David Warlick, Scott McLeod and more from the top 50 education reform blogs) and reading various books on the subject including Switch by Dan and Chip Heath.  The book outlines the following three steps for creating lasting change: direct the person with the specific change steps that you want them to follow, motivate the person to change by appealing to their emotional need for improvement and determine the path the person should follow by providing simple and clear goals for future success.  Interestingly, all of these resources and forward thinkers emphasize over and over again one critical point: motivation.

Applying this to the teachers mentioned above, the ones who are not interested in professional learning, how do we encourage change and promote professional learning from an emotional perspective?  Which approach should we use- scare tactics or inspiration?  I was planning on showing motivational videos of students and teachers learning and using technology in a "the future is now" sort of approach like Justin Tarte discussed on his blog, but now I am wondering if that would really motivate someone who has a diminished desire to learn professionally?  Perhaps we need to create videos that show what the alternative reality would be if teachers do not change and our students are left behind in a futuristic technological world?  Should we be showing videos of students who are unprepared and unable to perform compared to students in other countries?  Maybe we need to put the emphasis on the effects on students in the future instead of a "be all you can be" approach for Teacher of the Year?

What do you think? What approach do you think will motivate teachers who are not interested in learning outside work hours? What emotional approach will inspire change in teachers?

Jessica :)

Photo Source:  MrB-MMX